Destiny's Touch
by Contraltissimo
Summary: Revised. Formerly entitled The Greatest Blessing of All. I wasn't completely satisfied with it, so I changed it. AWE spoilertastic. This story covers those moments when Will finally discovered what it meant to have a touch of destiny about him.


Original Summary from Friday, May 25, 2007:  
_Yeah, it's another one. You know there's gonna be a million of these ficlets before lunchtime, being the morning after the midnight showing and all. AWE spoilertastic, read at own risk, I'd love to get reviews, yada, yada, yada, don't do drugs._

There was originally more to the ending of this story, but I've since revised it and changed the title. I felt it ran a little too far than was good for it, when all I should have captured from the beginning were those few minutes when Will's life was changed forever.

I hope you still enjoy it.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

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And then Jones' steel pierced my breast.

Everything else became somehow quieter then. For a moment I could feel only the pain and the strangeness. A sword sticking out of my own body. It wasn't right. My thoughts, my futures, my hopes shrank away from it. I didn't want to die.

Images played their motions before my eyes: the rain, the sails, the shapes of people. But the only thing I saw was the thing that hurt me, the shine of wet steel. I recognized it. Folded steel. Perfectly balanced. Gold filigree in the handle. This was _my_ sword. The last one I had made. Governor Swann had ordered it, so fine a thing...

And here it was, cutting me, pushing and digging into me until I could feel it in my back. Come to kill the one who forged it.

Everything ended then, everything was lost. I didn't want it to be this way; I willed myself to defy it. But inside, in a quiet place of calm and reason, I knew I was finished. And that voice grew louder and stronger in my mind with each heartbeat. I could feel the warmth leaving me, pooling on the deck.

It was too late. This was it. I had to resign myself to my fate. I strained my eyes to see beyond the flesh, beyond the pain.

Jack was still there. He looked at me and hesitated.

And then I saw Elizabeth. She came to me. I felt her fingers on my face, her hands cupping my cheeks.

Her eyes were so stricken, her tears mixing with the rain. I wanted so dearly to return the embrace. But my limbs felt as stone; my body longed only for sleep. I ached to reach up and take her face in my own hands, I wanted to say I was sorry, to tell her I loved her, to tell her it was all right, we were together, we were married, and that that joy at least had been ours before this final darkness, before the end. Nothing could take that away. Elizabeth Swann Turner. My bride.

The planks shuddered beneath me, voices shouted around me. The sounds of life, of living things. Living men, still free to breathe, free to move, free to choose their own fates. And yet here were we all, choosing only to render the work of death amongst each other.

_Fools_.

And now my lot was cast. I would be the one who fell behind.

I shivered. I didn't realize how cold my hands had become until I felt the warm touch of another upon them. _My dearest Elizabeth_... A curling round, and a squeeze on my fingers. A release and a jarring stop, and my hand fell to the deck. The impact confused me, and I stopped to wonder for only a moment.

But I could not linger to know the reason. My closed eyes dimmed and my body fell asleep. My heart beat for the last time. Sweet hands caressed me before vanishing into footfalls and wind. Into shadows and rain. Into nothing.

And I was left to myself.

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The serene vastness took me into its bosom. I lay cradled in the blue of the sea all around me, as if it had been a nursing mother, and I its suckling child. To be a part of it forever. Its comfort washed over me, even as pain welled up anew in my stilled and broken heart.

A pressure in my chest. Ripping, pulling, breaking... My waning senses told me of the rending of my flesh.

My heart was being taken from me.

I was afraid. But the rolling of the sea around my body brought a peace to my mind. It rocked me as a woman rocks her infant to sleep. I felt the deck under my back and strong arms holding me. A silent voice whispered that all would be well. I waited...

And then the last sinew was severed.

Darkness fell around me like a curtain. The last reaches of my feeling failed. Everything was cut off, and I was alone in my emptiness.

A resigned sadness filled the great void within me. A separation, a _longing_... It was gone, and I could only bid a final farewell to that which had so long served me, the core vessel, the innermost housing of my lifeblood. There was need for it elsewhere. A much greater need than I alone could ever have for it.

The blackness pressed in closer. A dark abyss. It was all I had left.

My last wavering thoughts strayed to Elizabeth.

And then it was gone.

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I heard the click of a latch.

A thousand sensations bombarded me. The deck was solid under my back, water flowed across my skin, the roar and crash of the waves came down through countless fathoms of the sea to my ears. A pressure against my torso held me fast where I lay. My senses had returned.

I opened my eyes and saw rough hands close the wound. The scar ran dark across my chest. It was a mark of my duty, my charge... My _destiny_.

Near the scar, the steel blade of a sword still protruded from my body. I moved to stand and was flooded with a delicious pain. The pain of a living body. Death had not taken me after all.

I stood and removed the sword from where it had been embedded in my chest. The hole closed over instantly. I ran my hand over the spot; the skin showed no flaws.

A bewildering crew surrounded me. Contorted bodies, misshapen limbs. Jones' crew.

No, not Jones' crew. The _Flying Dutchman's_ crew. Two of them came forward and presented me with the dead man's chest. At the latching of its lock, the heart within it, _my_ heart, had been reborn. I could hear it through the water, pulsing its even rhythm in beautiful harmony with the swell of the sea.

I remembered.

Tia Dalma's words came back. _A touch of destiny_.

And I understood. It was _me_. They'd put the blade in _my_ hand. _I_ had stilled the heart of Davy Jones.

The dark and twisted crew stood expectantly before me. They were waiting for orders.

The sword still hung in my grip. The blade I had forged. My fingers tightened around the handle.

I knew then what I had to do.


End file.
